Friday, October 26, 2012

Humanity's End Foretold in Destruction of Oceans

[Exccerpted] Radioactive cesium levels in most kinds of fish caught off the coast of Fukushima haven't declined in the year following Japan's nuclear disaster, a signal that the seafloor or leakage from the damaged reactors must be continuing to contaminate the waters -- possibly threatening fisheries for decades, a researcher says.

..."The (radioactivity) numbers aren't going down. Oceans usually cause the concentrations to decrease if the spigot is turned off," Buesseler told The Associated Press in an interview. "There has to be somewhere they're picking up the cesium."

"Option one is the seafloor is the source of the continued contamination. The other source could be the reactors themselves," he said.

Hideo Yamazaki, a marine biologist at Kinki University, agrees with Buesseler's theory that the cesium is leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant and that it will contaminate seafood for more than a decade.

He said he believes the plant will continue to leak until cracks and other damage to the three reactors that melted down are repaired. It's unclear when that work will be completed, or even how, because radiation levels in the reactors are too high for humans or even robots.

"The current levels of contamination in the fish and seafood from the Fukushima coast will continue for a while, perhaps more than 10 years, judging from the progress in the cleanup process," Yamazaki said in an email....

Majia Here: For a summary analysis of research on ocean releases see here

For a discussion of the implications of these releases for human and ecosystem health on land see here

How
Much Fukushima Fuel is IN the Ocean? Majia here: I am quite concerned
about a recent comment made by the founder of Japan's Skilled Veterans
Corps, a group of retired skilled professionals who are committed to ...

Evidence
on Fukushima Effects. There are a number of conclusions that can be
drawn from an analysis of the information available about Fukushima.
First, data about the scale of atmospheric and ocean emissions have not ...

Consensus
holds that Fukushima constitutes the greatest radiological release into
the ocean ever to occur. According to Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution in Massachusetts, levels of radioactive cesium reached more ...

I
wondered what will happen to the beautiful Pacific Ocean as Fukushima
radiation disperses. People have been dumping chemicals, sludge, and
radioactive debris in the ocean for decades and now the oceans are in ...

Ken
Buesseler, a scientist at Massachusetts's Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, told the paper that Fukushima was by far the largest
accidental release of radioactive material into ocean waters—exceeding,
by a ...

I
think that when people read about ocean contamination, their immediate
reaction is concern over contaminated food, such as fish. And the
evidence is increasingly clear that Fukushima is going to contaminate
sea life ...

Research
Citation. Behrens, E., F.U. Schwarzkopf, J.F. Lübbecke and C.W. Böning,
2012: Model simulations on the long-term dispersal of 137Cs released
into the Pacific Ocean off Fukushima. Environmental Research Letters ...

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).